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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



kle the plain at intervals of 3 or 4 miles. 

 They are poor little hamlets, composed 

 of houses of mud or stone, just high 

 enough to allow a man to stand upright. 



Not a scrap of green relieves the 

 brown monotony, except in one or two 

 cases where some industrious soul care- 

 fully draws water from a deep well and 

 daily waters a few sorry vegetables en- 

 closed within a mud wall. 



At first it puzzled me to know how 

 the soldier always picked out the guest- 

 house with unfailing accuracy. I soon 

 saw, however, that the guest-house, 

 which, like most of the houses, consists 

 of only a single room, never has hay 

 stacked on its top. Also, it is regularly 

 located a little to one side of the main 

 body of the hamlet, in such a position 

 that the guests, as they ride up, may not 

 pass close to the other houses, nor, as 

 they sit in the cool of the evening before 

 the door, be tempted to admire the 

 women on their way to the well for 

 water. 



On arriving at the door of the guest- 

 house, one merely goes inside and sits 

 down. By and by a boy or man appears 

 and says, ''You came well," to which one 

 answers, "We found things well." Then 

 the villager roasts coffee over a fire — 

 unless he has some old and much-cooked 

 grounds on hand — pounds it in a mortar, 

 boils it, and offers the guest a drink. If 

 one stops at a guest-house in the after- 

 noon, nothing more happens until even- 

 ing, except that the men drop in one by 

 one to hear the news, as the word of 

 the presence of strangers spreads to the 

 fields and herds. If one stops at 10 or 

 II o'clock in the morning, however, 

 nothing but patience is required in order 

 to get a meal of the best that the village 

 affords. 



TURKISH DISHES - 



Sometimes we had bread fried in fat; 

 often we were regaled with cracked 

 wheat, also cooked in fat, or with a dish 

 of fried eggs, to which flour was added 

 with a liberal hand to soak up the grease. 

 By way of relishes the richer folk some- 

 times brought us summer squash or egg- 

 plant stewed with butter, or a mess of 



greens raised in a tiny garden plot and 

 watered with infinite pains. 



The dish which stays longest in mem- 

 ory is "airan" — thin sour milk, in which 

 floated small cubes of cucumber and a 

 few tiny bits of raw onions, which had 

 been grated into it to give it a cooling- 

 flavor. 



When the traveler has eaten his fill^ 

 more coffee is served, the hosts go about 

 their business, and the traveler is left to 

 sleep a little or to resume his journey. 

 Payment is not asked nor expected, and 

 even to offer it is in many places re- 

 garded as discourteous. 



The little hamlets where we stopped 

 day after day are all occupied by Turks,, 

 who lead a semi-nomadic life. Flocks 

 and herds are their main reliance, but 

 for a mile or two aroimd most of the 

 hamlets the higher parts of the country 

 are planted with scanty crops of grain, 

 chiefly a peculiar red wheat, which was 

 being harvested at the time of our visits 

 in early July. Almost universally the 

 wheat seems to be planted in the very 

 dryest, highest places, while the rela- 

 tively low places, where there is a fair 

 amount of water and a hint of green 

 grass, are not tilled. Luiso, the wagoner,. 

 noticed this and had much to say about 

 the stupidity of people who let good land 

 lie waste and threw away their time in 

 trying to raise crops where nothing^ 

 would grow. 



AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES 



Near Lake Tatta, the large central salt 

 lake of Asia Minor, we rode for days 

 over a comparatively green plain with 

 running water in various places, yet 

 without cultivation. Here the strictures- 

 of the Greek reached a high pitch of 

 irony. "Look at these idiots," he said. 

 "Jnst put some Greeks here, or some 

 Muhajir Turks — that is, immigrants from 

 European Turkey — and see what beauti- 

 ful farms and gardens they would make. 

 These people are fools to live in poverty 

 and wander around with their cattle 

 when they might live in one place and 

 be rich." 



It almost seemed as if he were right.. 



